At long last we have warm days and green scenes just around the corner. In earlier days of more primitive home insulation, spring was a ray of hope having survived another winter. It is no wonder that green is considered the color most associated with hope. To the modern ape, spring means a time to clean the house, to start seeds for our hobby gardens, to dig our shorts out of storage and wear them for the first time before it is actually warm enough to do so. Most people, secular and non-secular alike, celebrate spring in one way or another.

The Wabanaki people, whose land we occupy here in Gorham, are holding their annual Spring Social on April 13 to “celebrate our relations.” This event is the largest intertribal gathering in Maine. Indigenous peoples more broadly may celebrate spring with various ceremonies and festivities, taking some time to appreciate the renewal of plant and animal life of which we are a part.

Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, took place in India on March 25, celebrated the coming harvest, love, and the triumph of good over evil.

Judaism holds Passover ceremonies at the end of April, from the 22nd to the 30th. Also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover celebrates the liberation of a people from slavery, and commemorates hardships endured.

The Islamic faith is in the midst of Ramadan, a tradition of prayer and fasting that takes place during the month it is believed that the Quran was given to their prophet. Ramadan ends in Eid al-Fitr on April 9. The combination of community and abstinence in this tradition is meant to strengthen one’s relationship to their god. In this way Ramadan is quite similar to the Christian tradition of practicing penitence with Lent, referring to the lengthening of the days. Lent ends with the solemn observance of Holy Week from March 28 to 30, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, commemorating the Passion of Jesus, and the resurrection on Easter Sunday, March 31, with chocolates at the ready! The Easter Season lasts until Pentecost Sunday, May 19 this year, the seventh Sunday of Easter.

Easter is understood to be an adaptation of Pagan traditions, thus easing the conversion of Pagans to Christianity by incorporating their established celebrations. The Pagan celebrations of spring focused around Ishtar, a Mesopotamian goddess of fertility, love, and war. This is typically celebrated by the symbolic planting of seeds and festivities involving eggs. Egg hunt anyone?

Whatever your customary means of rejoicing in spring, it is of course happening at different times in different places. Folks in Florida are already experiencing the return of leaves and lawns with summer-like weather. In the southern hemisphere, people are buckling down for winter. But in Guatemala they may have it best of all: the country is known as the “land of eternal spring” with pleasant and mild weather year-round. As much as winter had some of us thinking about moving south, we tend to forget all that sacrilege when spring rolls around here in Maine.